


A Perverse Sort of Serendipity

by wanderNavi



Series: knock on your door, hands up [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, Interrogation, Poor Past Parenting, Revolutionary Army - Freeform, Slave Trade, did I have time to read One Piece again?, just so you know, opens with, severe nausea, technically no
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:00:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21662575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderNavi/pseuds/wanderNavi
Summary: Shun blinked rapidly against the lethargy brought on by the seastone cuffs. He yanked his chin back up and said, “Fucking shit.”In which: Shun gets arrested, toasts are held, and a crew is formed.
Series: knock on your door, hands up [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1558732
Kudos: 4





	A Perverse Sort of Serendipity

**Author's Note:**

> I’m still busy, I’m still clueless about anything post Punk Hazard, and I’m still thankful for the Discord Crew. This is set in a nebulous pre-canon.

Shun blinked rapidly against the lethargy brought on by the seastone cuffs. He yanked his chin back up and said, “Fucking shit.”

The ship swayed with the rough seas outside once again and unprepared, his head smashed into the wall he was propped up against. If he opened his mouth, he’d start throwing up from the gut roiling nausea, so Shun kept his dumbass, stupid, trouble-seeking mouth shut and waited for a marine to swing by. With luck, Shun would be able to throw up on _him_.

At least the room’s dark, no windows, no lights, Shun acknowledged as another wave slammed the boat in the other way and his whole gastrointestinal system rebelled against the chains confining his chest and limbs. Normally, he’d have no problems being out on sea, but it’s these damn cuffs and whatever the sniper nailed him with that made him want to crawl out of his own skin into the oblivious embrace of sleep. But he _can’t_ , not with being on a fucking marine battleship and surrounding by a fucking marine battalion and due for a nice conversa _tion_.

Shit, his feet were numb. He rolled his head, this way, that. Breathed in through his nose.

Of course, the marines infiltrated the haunts preferred by pirates and outlaws on the regular. Of course, there were ears listening and eyes watching for activity more suspicious than the norm. Of course, a bartender couldn’t be trusted, not with the government’s deep pockets slapping payments into hands held under the counter, next to shotguns and trash bins, a tip for a tip. Of course, Shun’s favorite bar this side of the Red Line would eventually need new staff and the owner couldn’t run a deep enough background check to catch “government spy, might be an issue, you know, maybe.”

Damn _it_ , Previously Raven’s was his favorite bar and now he’ll never be able to go back, by all the teeth of the Calm Belt sea kings and the storms of New World, gods _damn_ it. Tranquilizer to neck, head meet pavement, arrested again. And this time the arresting officers were far more prepared. The sheer indignity.

The ship tipped forward. Shun felt positively bloated. It’d been long enough he needed to piss, but like hell was he ruining his pants and later facing the exasperation and needling from the quartermasters when he explained what happened. Bad enough his seventy hours’ leave’s been wrecked by his gob and need to know everything going on every time he swung by Previously Raven’s.

He was still spitting curses at himself and uselessly wrenching at his immobilized tattoos, trying and failing to jumpstart the ink back to life, when several hours later a trio of marines finally checked the cell and dragged him off to interrogation. For the first time in too long, he felt something other than a poisonous nausea, even if it was the fiery pins-and-needles of his legs stumbling and crashing back to life. Shun just barely couldn’t manage to throw up on them.

* * *

He’s such a valued guest on their ship that the marines dragged out their highest officer. “Commander, I’m not flattered,” Shun told him.

“I’m not either,” Braidy agreed, a small frown under those ridiculous bangs. To have hair that long and on offer for a grab and a yank, he was either an idiot or too good at fighting. Shun checked his shoulders one last time and, ugh, later.

Something deep in the gut and bones of the ship creaked in their silence, staring at each other across from a scarred table, pitted with scratches and splintering stabs. Carefully, Shun leaned back in the hard seat and hooked one foot over the other. Wiggled a set of toes that still felt swollen with static. Painfully laced his fingers over his knees. Commander Braids didn’t even have a single sheet of paper in front of him.

“Mr. Oshiro, help me corroborate some facts we’ve uncovered,” Commander Probably-takes-an-hour-getting-ready-every-morning said. Also, _mister_ , how unendearingly polite.

The cuffs over his wrists don’t have remotely enough give to allow him to cross his arms. He shuffled his back further into hard metal and stared at the officer with a slow blink.

“Over the course of the last several months, there have been a series of break-ins at various Marine local bases. For the most part, nothing irrecoverable has been lost, baring a couple Den Den Mushi and a kitchen knife, though that last item has been attributed to a chief’s assistant that recently left our employment. More pressingly, it has appeared that information that should have been confidential no longer is. Several Marine exclusive shipping routes have been intercepted and attacked. Certain troop reallocations have been leaked.”

This was a pulled-together guy, neat, mostly complying with regulations, so definitely nice polished shoes. Shun thought, come on, punch me, cut me, give me a little adrenaline, enough to kick this body over and upchuck all over your boots and your white, pressed pants.

Something must have shone on his face.

A heavy frigidness settled over the marine’s white coat. His presence shoved away the flimsy barrier of the table between them and against Shun’s silence, he pressed with all the gentleness of a sharpened knife against a major artery, “On several occasions, an individual matching your description had been sighted near the Marine premise, Mr. Oshiro. Paired with connections to certain radical elements and views attributed to you yourself, the Marines have grounds for your arrest for being an agent of the so-called Revolutionary Army. Any comments on what I've laid out so far?”

Shun sat unmoving.

* * *

If you’re not fighting for something, a battering ram breaking down the boundaries to tomorrow and to tomorrow and the next tomorrow and the one after _that_ – well, you’re not living, not really, not in a world like this. This Shun knew and he breathed a silent, ragged gasp.

Rain lashed against his uncovered head and everything from the elbow down was still a shrieking bundle of strained nerves and pain. Breaking out had taken far more out of him than he’d estimated. But there’d be no rescue, he knew and allowed. The Revolution had no resources to chase after all snatched agents and more to the point, if someone who’d clawed his way through the world as long as him couldn’t handle a Commander or two, it was his own damn fault at that point.

His commandeered ship’s rudder fought against the thrashing waves and he gritted his teeth. This storm too would pass and _god_ he detested sailing singlehandedly. At this rate, the knots in the rope lashed around his waist attaching him to the central mast would swell with the water and he’d have no choice but to hack them off with a knife, loath as he was at the anticipated damage to perfectly serviceable rope.

 _Sort this thing out one at a time, you idiot,_ he thought, _and get to the Red Line._

* * *

Shun’s not supposed to know certain finer details about the Monkey D. family tree, but when has what he was supposed to know stopped him? Besides, the knowledge doesn’t have much cause to come up and reveal its residence in his head. The most Shun thought about Dragon’s lineage was occasionally at the bottom of a pint of beer, where his thoughts stray to the dangerous territories of trying to figure out exactly who Garp the Fist knocked up. At which point, Shun typically ordered another glass.

And it’s not like the intangible images of family had any place in the revolution, too unrefined and volatile, combusting against all plans and directives, without a defined end goal of, well. They didn’t do family, _he_ didn’t do family, not really. Tucked in the sharp slash of a grin, he’d say, “This here’s my dear comrade.” Posed with a familiar arm slung around a disguised set of shoulders, “Just a small partnership, sir, my cousin and I, tryin’a getting’ started, uh, this is the right paperwork, marine, sir?” and a wet paint dab of nervous inexperience applied atop the façade.

He’d grabbed a child’s hand once, tiny fingers curled against his palm and the promise of jet black lashing out, and hunkered down in a library they’d ducked into just before a trio of hired hands came peeling around the corner looking for lost _merchandise_. The kid knew to play meek along with genuine fascination at the whispering pages and simplistic stained-glass windows set high on the walls while Shun smiled proudly at the receptionist, said, “My kid’s growing up and the partner and I, we thought a library card would be a good way to start introducing responsibility.” Naturally, he hadn’t had any of the necessary paperwork, neither him nor the kid possessing anything like a legal place of residence, but he was just a father curious for information with promises to come back next time, wasn’t he? A storm swept in and they tucked themselves into a corner of a room, guarded by bookshelves, and Shun passed the hours waiting of an all clear with whispering along to captions in a botany textbook.

 _Fuck_ , what did he know about family? He’d barely had one growing up, along with just about everyone else he knew on this sorry spitball of a drenched planet. The ideas of functioning families wasn’t high on the Revolutionary’s priorities, at best a side-effect to consider and account for. With a man like Dragon at the helm, it never would.

So when Hayato found Shun sitting on a damp roof, cradling a long cold lunch in the hunched valley between his chest and his knees, he hadn’t been thinking about families or building families or raising or maintaining or whatever it was you did with families. He’d been picking at the food and glanced up, a tinge of wary apprehension. Where one half of the Fermi pair went, the other was sure to quickly follow. Shun unfolded his legs, kicked his feet out into the air, and wiggled his ass over to the left a bit on the ledge, enough to give his approaching companion room to also sit. Hayato made a vague noise at the cold damp but took the invitation. Mechanically, with numb fingers, Shun shoved another shrimp in his mouth.

“Heard your leave was more exciting than expected,” Hayato said.

Shun grunted and swiped at the congealing sauce that the base kitchen kept insisting on wiping together and was only really edible straight out of the fire and barely even then. Cold like this, it wasn’t even worth thinking about. Three bites later, he mumbled, “Yeah.”

Took a bite out of hardened bread and glared out at the pale land around them as he chewed. “Don’t think I’ll be able to take as many active missions anymore. Certainly not alone.” He hadn’t meant for that to escape his mouth. “They knew my name and face and I always mess up physical disguises. Were starting to figure out my infiltration tricks too.”

“Stuck here doing bookkeeping then?” The wind whined against their coats.

Shun grimaced at the crumbs in his lap and brushed them off. “Well, someone’s gotta help analyze all the information we’ve been near indiscriminately collecting.”

“Tonomi and I, we’ve been thinking –” and where _were_ they, by the way “—and we thought you might be interested in hearing. Clandestine isn’t quite cutting it for us anymore and it’s not really outreach, but we’re thinking of striking out.”

At Shun’s sideways glance, “Forming a pirate crew as it were.”

Pirate’s getting too broad a term, Shun decided and he rubbed purple, numb fingers over each other. Brown fur protected Hayato from the worst of the biting wind. Shun ran his tongue against the back of his front teeth, felt their bumps and ridges, and said in a slow measure, “I’m not a fan of sewing suicide pills into all my articles of clothing. We’d be throwing ourselves headlong into a completely different set of dangers and if any of us get captured…”

The mink’d been with the Revolutionaries longer than Shun by years. He understood.

“Good thing our illustrious leaders aren’t over-fanatic zealots and can see the benefits of more public allies that can misdirect attention,” said Hayato with his eyes turned to Shun’s face. “Will you think about it?”

Scoffing, Shun knocked an elbow against his furry arm and swung his legs back over the ledge, feet hitting the roof. “Of course. But right now, I have shipping routes to think about.”

* * *

“Fucking Tenryuubito,” Shun said and toasted.

Lizra’s cloudy glass clinked against his and as one, they downed their drinks. At the moment, Shun’s back on Sabaody, tenaciously avoiding any of his old haunts, sinking into the malaise of criminals – gangs, pirates, slavers, smugglers – and losing himself among the chiseled rough civilians putting up with the collective shit. As a new recruit, still shiny with a brick in her shoulder and the bubbling haze of not quite registering _this is her life now_ yet, Lizra’s bemusing and cute to observe.

The bar filled around them, the rising tide of night’s darkness driving patrons into the dim, candlelit booths and tables. Swollen laughter erupted from table 17 at regular, five-minute intervals and with fluid practice, Shun ignored the smell of ripening body order from the party behind him. Metal flashed and sheaths clattered to the pounding of fists and, “More, waitress, more, ya lass, c’me h’re, another platter, another pitcher, cheers, men, cheers!”

The room’s buzzing energy shot through Lizra’s spine, Shun observed under his relaxed gaze. He had her chatting about jewelry they saw earlier in a window display behind thick glass and under the sharp paranoia of the shopkeeper. Table 3 slashed a knife through the air in demonstration of an exaggerated story and a flushed pirate flung a fistful of cards at his companion with a roar at table 8. A cluster of thieves huddled around table 7, hissing in conspiratorial terms while chairs at table 14 slammed back and faces turned at booth 2 with a growl. Shun hummed at an appropriate moment while Lizra debated between two equally meaningless options of earrings.

At last, booth 5 stood up and Shun snagged the attention of their waiter for his and Lizra’s tab. He sorted out the paper bills and generous tip and she snapped shut her one-sided conversation with a decided clack. She tossed him his coat and they made their way out the bar’s door in time to catch three shambling figures weaving through the crowd of people pushing in and out of the venues servicing Sabaody’s nightlife. He offered an arm out to her and hand tucked around his elbow, they ambled their way in lackadaisical pursuit.

This auction house had been posing something of an irritant with it constantly moving from premise to premise across the groves and never holding its wares in the same place. Shun suspected a tunnel system at work, but there hadn’t been any proof. And it had always made sour frustration stain his throat and lungs when he had to walk into traps without blueprints and escape routes mapped out beforehand and possible combatants and concerns picked apart in preparation of an operation, especially while showing a rookie the ropes. Didn’t matter that this was supposed to be like a final exam for Lizra before letting her loose on her own and that she was the one in technical charge.

Their targets slipped into a lit building and Shun gave Lizra a boost onto a nearby rooftop to wait the night out.

“See, there and there,” she pointed. “Those the security guards?”

“Mhm,” Shun confirmed in as low a voice. “Good job, yes, they’re the guards with the Celestials. Where do you think the others out of sight are?”

She concentrated and flicked a finger below a darkened window. “Good,” he told her. “Review the plan one more time?”

She swallowed and nodded. “Inside, we suspect at least two dozen slaves are being held. Floor area limited as it is, we suspect a mix with more children and adolescents than adults, certainly no one of too large stature. A stealthy escape will be difficult, so my goal is to take out all the guards and slavers and block any reinforcements from arriving through hidden tunnels. Meanwhile, you’ll wait on a five-minute delay, then start freeing everyone we can and covering up brands with your ink.”

“Very well. Then on your mark, Lizra.”

* * *

It would just be the three of them at first, Shun learned, and he’d rubbed his thumbs against the tired corners of his eyes, felt his skin swollen with interrupted, poor sleep. “Okay,” he’d said to forestall any statements. “Okay, just let me. I take it you want to stay in the Grand Line?” Because Shun did, even as he bemoaned the _terrible_ decision, three fools on their own navigating through the unruly chaos, even if the first half was far simpler than the second. He _did_ , they were all natives of this unrelenting sea, born and raised, with its salt crystalized in their lungs and its winds howling in their veins. They’d never make it in the Blues, they’d be clawing up the walls at the boredom and the unnaturalness.

“Okay,” he said and dragged the pitcher over, sloshed more tea into his cup. Drank. Set the cup back down onto the pockmarked wooden surface of the dining hall table. Dragged his thumb along the line of his jaw, rubbed a streak of black in its wake. “This isn’t a lark,” he said, more towards himself than them.

“Of course,” Tonomi said.

Shun nodded, drained his cup. “This is going to make life and our actions far more ad hoc. We’re cutting ourselves off from any meager assistance we already had here and well. Jeez I hope we can build a crew quickly. None of us are medics.”

Hayato nodded. “Well, it’s decided. We’ll hitch a ride with a mission towards the mid-start of Paradise and proceed from there. There’s one heading out in about a couple more weeks and I’ll go discuss our departure with the higher ups. You good?”

“I haven’t explicitly agreed with this career change,” protested Shun, though he as good as signed his name on this venture the moment he accepted the invitation to tea and sat down at the table instead of making do with a hip leaned against the scarred edge and pushing off after a few minutes of light discussion to meander his way on to the next five pound box of copied documents. “This is still a quarter of a bad idea. Where are we getting funds for a ship and provisions? I know a few municipal coffers that could some belt tightening and a few smuggler dens that haven’t moved yet last time I checked. Is that how we’re doing this? It feels wrong to suddenly start selling information we collect to the Revolutionary Army; we’re still going to be allies.”

A paw thumped against his back. “Welcome on board, Shun. You’re already accepting the role as crew fretter and parental hen wonderfully.”

“Hey, I'm just thinking about our survival here, there’s no parenting at all. We’re not setting out to collect a bunch of kids, I’m not being parent of anything. There’s going to be no. Oh hells, this is you two leaving the nest – apologies Tonomi – and dragging me along, you _are_ trying to build a little … _fam_ ily, how do I even play into that dynamic?”

“Drink your tea,” Tonomi directed.

**Author's Note:**

> I still distinctly remember this time someone crashed into middle school me’s inbox going on about how Luffy is a tactical genius, those exact words. It’s been years and my reaction is still a) cool, what brought this on and b) go off, I guess. It’s legitimately nearing a decade, yet still, sometimes at 3 am while I’m bullying code to compile, this memory strikes me.


End file.
